Vert-à-Go

The Saskatchewan Eco-Network will host the 4th Annual Saskatchewan Environmental Film Festival (”See the Change, Be the Change”) this weekend at the University of Saskatchewan.

How can we ensure a socially, environmentally, and financially-sustainable global economy? By creating sustainable local economies. That’s the thrust behind the conference kicking off tomorrow in Saskatoon, which aims to help Saskatchewan communities and businesses find a place in an economy that is rapidly becoming more focused on health and environmental sustainability.

“In Saskatchewan, as in much of the world, economic viability is increasingly sensitive to issues such as rising energy and transportation costs, distribution systems and concerns about climate change. As well, consumers are becoming ever more health and environmentally-conscious.

[This conference will be invaluable for] Saskatchewan producers, processors, vendors, business developers, community leaders, educators, and anyone interested in leading the charge to a healthy economy based on dynamic new ideas and business structures.” –conference program

Guest speakers include economist and community entrepeneur Michael Schuman (author of the blog Small-Mart), Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, and Jim Green, the public voice of Kettle Chips, among others, who will discuss a wide variety of topics, including local food, sustainable practices, public spaces, value-added products, and marketing.  Their talks, special workshops, trade show, and networking opportunities can help you emplower your community, develop environmental stewardship, and ensure long-term economic viability in uncertain times.

Supporting the Growth of Local Living Economies in Saskatchewan conference
When: 24-25 March

Where: Saskatoon Inn, 2002 Airport Drive, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

For more information: (306) 384-5817 or email seda@seda.sk.ca

Sponsored by the Saskatchewan Economic Development Corporation (SEDA) and the Saskatchewan Food Processors Association

“Women produce between 60 and 80 percent of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for half of the world’s food production, yet their key role as food producers and providers and their critical contribution to household food security is only now becoming recognized.”

–Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Today, 8 March, is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the social, political, and economic achievements of women. One of the big headlines today was how the recession is hitting women in developing countries. As the article states, “Seventy per cent of the poorest people on the planet are women and girls, and even in a wealthy country like Canada they are the majority of the poor.” Jobs in the traditionally female employment sectors (retail, restaurants, cleaning) are rapidly vanishing because of the economic downturn, and because women earn less than men even in good times (a 16% overall wage gap globally), they have fewer resources when things turn bad. This makes them (and their children) extremely vulnerable to rises in food prices and much more likely to fall victim to poverty, malnutrition, and starvation (not to mention abuse as they are forced to do whatever is necessary in order to earn money to buy food to survive).

The International Food Policy Research Institute has issued a number of fascinating reports (Women: the Key to Food Security, Helping Women Respond to the Global Food Price Crisis) outlining the special problems facing women as they deal with issues of food security and hunger. Here are a few of its findings:

1. Agricultural productivity increases dramatically when women get the same amount of inputs (such as educational, labour, fertiliser) that men get: one single year of primary school education caused women farmers to increase their maize production by 24%.
2. Women’s education and status within the household contribute more than 50 percent to the reduction of child malnutrition: an educated and respected woman has a much greater likelihood of raising a healthy child.
3. Good care practices can mitigate the effects of poverty and low maternal schooling on children’s nutrition: teaching uneducated women about how to feed and care for their children helped their children to achieve the same height and weight as those of more highly-educated mothers.
4. Women are at a disadvantage when food and nutrients are distributed within a household: women feed their children first and themselves second, which means they often go hungry and lack proper adult nutrients.

The IPRI recommended that a number of steps be taken to improve the situation: reform and monitor legal, social, and cultural institutions to improve the status of women, be innovative in the design of agricultural, food, and nutrition programs, and design projects to be more sensitive to the livelihoods of both men and women.

One brilliant example of what can be done: the international women’s human rights organisation MADRE runs a program for women farmers in the Sudan , who “face a triple crisis of poverty, environmental degradation, and armed conflict.” Their project provides these farmers with seeds and supplies, including donkeys and plows, as well as resources and technical assistance. You can donate to MADRE here.

Happy new year! Holiday festivities are now over for most people and there’s not much to do apart from dig yourself out from the snow and finish clearing out the fridge of festive leftovers. A friend of mine, Tom, suggests the following New Year’s Day recipe:

Humpty’s Last Stand

Take all remaining 2008 food, chop, add egg and bake. Ready for 2009!

I have already made turkey pot pie, stock, creamed turkey, a couple of coleslaws, and chilli and am now down to half a leek, a grapefruit, and a cup of gravy. Oh, and a pound of chestnuts. I fear it may require more than eggs to transform those ingredients into an edible concoction!

While you’re enjoying the revitalised dregs of 2008, here is a list of some of the top food stories from the past year. 2008 was a tumultuous year, which brought a huge amount of hardship to people worldwide–as well as some exciting developments that promise some hope of change in 2009.

1. Although the first shocks were felt in 2007, it was in 2008 that the food crisis began to bite hard. Skyrocketing food prices, riots, privation, and starvation–it was a perfect storm formed from a combination of factors, including food commodities speculation, the rush to biofuels, crop failure, spiking oil prices, natural disasters, and governmental incompetence (or malice). Towards the end of the year, some organic growers and vendors (like Whole Foods) were beginning to feel the pinch as consumers looked for ways to reduce their food bills.
2. The previous few years brought the term ‘locavore’ and the 100-mile diet to the fore, but in 2008 a backlash arose against the strict application of ‘food miles’ without consideration for other environmental impacts such as method of production. Turns out transport doesn’t count for everything when it comes to carbon emissions.
3. In March, Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government withdrew funding for Station 20 West, a non-profit public centre that was to include dental, medical, and mental health services for Saskatoon’s core neighbourhood residents. CHEP and the Elizabeth Fry Society were also expected to join the centre, as well as a cooperative grocery store (area residents have been without a full-service local grocery store for a decade). In April, thousands of supporters gathered to protest the cuts in a community march. Having spent the year fundraising, Station 20 West now plans to break ground on its revised centre (which will include the grocery store) this May.
4. Uncertainty about the food crisis led to a sharp increase in the number of people planting gardens, many for the first time, this past spring. Seed sales skyrocketed in Canada, the US, the UK, and elsewhere. Many city people (including me!) dug up their front lawns to plant vegetables instead.
5. It was another rotten year for rotten food–in Canada, with the Maple Leaf foods listeriosis outbreak, which killed 20 people across the country, and the E. coli outbreak from contaminated lettuce at a North Bay Harvey’s fast food restaurant. Fingers were pointed at the Canadian food inspection system. The US scrambled to find the source of a salmonella outbreak (first incorrectly linked to California tomatoes, then later to Mexican peppers), while in China, tens of thousands of babies were harmed by melamine-tainted milk (which had then also entered the global food chain).
6. Honeybees, which are succumbing in droves to an as-yet-unsolved combination of ailments called Colony Collapse Disorder, continued to decline. Parasites and pesticides appear to be chief culprits, but many of the hive deaths and disappearances are unexplained.
7. There were catastrophic floods in Iowa, as well as another year of catastrophic drought in Australia, as well as ever-increasing evidence of the effect of climate change on the ocean–salmon in Alaska attacked by a warmer-water parasite, while west-coast oysters were hit by a bacteria deadly to shellfish larvae that appeared to be connected to a new anaerobic dead zone in the ocean. These natural and unnatural disasters demonstrate yet again how dependent we are on the earth and weather behaving as we expect they should so we can grow sufficient food.
8. Several more fisheries were forced to close or are driving themselves close to collapse because of insufficient fish, due to manmade contamination or overfishing–US west coast salmon from California to Oregon, and bluefin tuna in both the Mediterranean and off the coast of Japan. Taras Grescoe’s book Bottomfeeder warned of the imminent need for humans to stop eating so far up the ocean’s food chain and to reject unsustainably-caught fish if we are to prevent mass oceanic extinction.
9. Seventeen Canadian municipalities, including the city of Toronto, decided to ban the sale of bottled water on their premises and forty-five more are set to debate the issue. It’s time to go Back to the Tap!
10. ABC News’s Senior White House Correspondence Jake Tapper called Barack Obama “an arrogant, arugula-eating, fancy-berry-tea-drinking celebrity”, while sustainable food fans cheered when Obama revealed that he had read Michael Polan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Pollan wrote an open letter to the ‘Farmer in Chief’ and a campaign began to create an organic food garden on the White House Lawn. And he hasn’t even taken office yet!
11. Burger King released a men’s cologne that smells like a Whopper hamburger. Well, I suppose it’s better to smell like one than eat one…
12. The launch of Vert-à-Go! I’ve learned a huge amount since starting up this web site last March, and I’m looking forward to covering more food issues and providing more information on where to find sustainable, organic, local and ethically-produced food over the next year. Thanks for reading!

“One of the most dazzling books I’ve read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice.”

–Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine and No Logo) on Raj Patel’s book Stuffed and Starved

Here’s the cover blurb for Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System, which should give a pretty good overview about the content of the lecture:

For those with enough money - and that’s most of us in wealthier countries - life is good. We can eat almost anything we want, regardless of where it comes from, what season it is or how much it costs. The world is our dish, laden with more foods than we’ve ever seen in history and more calories than we know what to do with. A continent away, there are more bloated bellies, but this time from malnutrition - seemingly due to a scarcity of food. But these two contrasting worlds are linked, deeply and inextricably. In a timely look at the entire global food chain, Stuffed and Starved asks us to think about the way our food comes to us, to understand how our supermarket shopping makes us complicit in denying freedom to the world’s poorest and to recognize how we ourselves are poisoned by our choices.

Raj Patel, an author uniquely qualified to take a long, broad view of world food production, looks at food systems-the machine most of us don’t even know exists - and the web made up of corporations, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, farmers’ groups, government agencies and corporate lobbyists. From farm to fork, Patel travels to rural collectives in Brazil, investigates the all-powerful distribution networks, serves up the specific journeys of coffee, soy and high-fructose corn syrup, and visits the kitchens of fast-food restaurants. What he uncovers is the shocking story of commercial greed and helpless hunger that is a key ingredient in everything we eat.

Stuffed and Starved is one of the most shocking investigations into the “haves” feeding off the “have-nots” and a compelling look at how we all suffer the consequences of a food system cooked to a corporate recipe.

Copies of Stuffed and Starved will be available at the event.

Sponsored by the National Farmers Union as part of its 39th Annual National Convention

TV chef Jamie Oliver appeared in front of the UK House of Commons health committee yesterday, testifying about how he believes the downturn in the economy could lead to people eating unhealthier food. Huge numbers of people simply no longer know how to cook, he claims, and over the years have grown to rely heavily on fast food, junk food, takeaways, and prepared meals. Oliver’s TV series ‘Jamie’s Dinners’, about his uphill battle to improve the eating habits of schoolchildren, certainly seems to bear up that assertion:

But what will happen to these people as real food grows increasingly expensive? Oliver says that in the past, people were able to use their cooking skills to make nutritious meals even when money was tight, but now there is a generation of young people who are nervous about using raw ingredients and simply don’t know the first thing about how to prepare them. He fears that these people will be forced by sheer economics to eat even more of the cheap (and usually nasty) food available, which could lead to an even bigger obesity problem in the UK, especially among children.

Of course, the UK isn’t the only place feeling the effect of higher food prices, the ubiquitousness of fast-food restaurants, and the rise of obesity. In the US, it’s even worse. And at least one fast-food chain is now explicitly using the shaky economy as part of their newest ad campaign. In this ad for KFC’s $10 Challenge, a family visits a grocery store and tries to buy all the ingredients for a chicken supper for under $10, only to throw their hands up in failure and, laughing, run out of the store to KFC to buy supper instead. It really has to be seen to be believed.

I don’t have the time or space to rant about how offensive this ad is on so many levels (mocking people’s money problems! insulting their budgeting/grocery shopping skills! having the gall to claim that fast food is equivalent to home cooking! assuming that no one already has a single food staple in their cupboard!), so I’ll leave it up to chef Kurt Michael Friese on Grist, who explains in detail about how he beat KFC’s $10 ‘family meal’ challenge. And he even gives you the recipes at the end. Beat that, KFC!

(photo by Thomas Hawk)

When you buy locally-grown food, it’s not only farmers who benefit–it’s good for the local community and economy as well.

One of the best sources of high quality, super-fresh local food is the farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets are popular with customers who appreciate the chance to meet the person who grew and produced their food–in Saskatoon’s case in particular, they help to reconnect urban people to the (sadly, much-forgotten) agrarian heritage of the province. But markets also provide a higher financial return for the vendors themselves. Under the market model, farmers get to keep all the money from the sale of their food-rather than just a small fraction from selling it to a middleman, who then sells it to another middleman, who sells it the consumer for a profit.

Having a healthy number of local farmers means that larger grocery stores and supermarkets increasingly have a reliable source for local food and don’t have to truck in lettuce, herbs, or cucumbers from California during the summer. As fuel (and food) costs continue to escalate, sustainable local suppliers are going to become a more and more attractive option for stores and consumers alike. In turn, local farmers benefit by gaining access to a large and steady market for their food, increasing their profile and encouraging other people to get into the local food business. Farmers’ markets may be the pinnacle of the local food movement, but to feed an entire city, it is vital that chain and independent grocery stores also get in on the action.

Sustainable local farms also help to keep surrounding communities alive. Small Saskatchewan towns have been dealt a huge blow over the past 70 years by the ever-increasing scale and industrialization of agriculture. But money spent on local food provides local jobs and gives people a reason and means to stay in their community, stimulating all other areas of the local economy. A larger number of small farms can also provide a more even scattering of local jobs, not just a cluster at some massive pig barn or processing plant in the middle of nowhere that workers have to drive many miles to get to. They also help spread the risk, economically speaking-if one company or industry gets hit for whatever reason (as with the Spudco debacle or avian flu epidemic in BC), it has a much bigger impact on the local community than if something catastrophic happens to a smaller operation.

Finally, the recent upsurge in interest in local food has meant a huge economic boost for Saskatoon in particular. It’s no accident that when this city finally decided after 40 years to develop the south downtown, that a permanent farmers’ market was part of the plans for the site. The new main market at River Landing serves as a destination for local people and visitors for shopping, and is a vital piece in the overall strategy to encourage people to live in, work in, and visit the riverfront area and historic core neighbourhoods. What’s more, there has still been so much spillover interest in local food that another farmers’ market started up last summer to fill the gaps for the north, east, and south sides of the city, four days a week.